1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet type printing apparatus and a printing method for printing an image on a print medium by moving a printing head relative to the print medium and ejecting ink from the printing head thereto.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ink jet type printing apparatuses have been known of which a printing head with a plurality of ejection nozzles provides energy to ink in the nozzles with an electro-thermal conversion element or an electro-mechanical conversion element so as to eject ink in the nozzles to a print medium so that an image is formed thereon. In the ink jet type printing apparatuses, it has been known to eject uniform color ink from a plurality of ejection nozzles in a plurality of ejection port arrays. In the ink jet type printing apparatuses, ink separated from an ink droplet which is ejected from an ejection port to a print medium is splashed to float as ink mists. The ink mists adhere on a formation face of the ejection ports of the printing head so that a large amount of the ink mists accumulate around the ejection port to possibly degrade ejection function thereof. Especially, in a printing head having a plurality of ejection port arrays arranged in a high density, airflows generated by ejected liquid droplets from ejection ports are mutually interfered between the ejection port arrays next to each other. The airflow generated by ejected liquid droplets is hereinafter referred to “self airflow”. As a result, strong airflows blowing up toward the printing head are generated. Adhesion of a large amount of ink mists to around the ejection ports of the printing head is occurred by the strong airflows so that they may obstruct the ejection ports. Therefore, for example, Japanese Patent laid-open No. H05-293973 (1993) discloses a configuration wiping off ink mists adhered to a formation face of ejection ports of a printing head.
However, a process for wiping off the ink mists adhered to the formation face decreases a processing speed of the apparatus.
An object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus and a printing method capable of suppressing adhesion of ink mists on a formation face of ejection ports and avoiding decreasing a processing speed.